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The Right to Make Bad Choices

(New York Sun) Hillel Halkin - Recognizing a government as a legitimate expression of popular will that is therefore entitled to rule is one thing. Supporting a government by extending financial or other aid to it is something else. It is patronizing to treat the Palestinian people as ignorant innocents who did not know what they were doing when they elected a party that calls for the destruction of Israel. They were aware of it and knew whom they were voting for. To now argue that financial assistance to a Hamas-led PA should continue as before, because if it doesn't the PA will collapse financially, is absurd. It is treating the Palestinians like children who are not responsible for what they do. Just as it took decades of communist regimes in Europe to convince the world that communism is a system that never works, the only way to rid the Muslim world of the illusion that Islamic governments can cure it of its ills may be to let such governments reign and fail. But to do this, it is imperative not to save them from failure by propping them up financially or otherwise.
2006-03-01 00:00:00
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